Foreword : Look, sometimes it takes me a bit to write things up as I lack *any* sort of writer discipline. I think of 5 articles a day to write and write about one article every 5 days instead. Sorry. Lileks I ain’t. Oh and this one will ramble a bit more than the previous installment so bear with me.

Background (feel free to skip to the Meat) :

            Having completed my initial tour as an intercept operator I left Korea for Ft. Meade, MD home to the NSA. Now I was the envy of VOB (If I have broken out acronyms in previous articles I won’t do so again… you will simply have to look it up in the previously linked article yourselves… (look at you readers doing a little Intel analysis (DOCEX) right here and now! I’m so proud…)) because Ft. Meade was a rare assignment for Korean interceptors. Everyone wanted to know “Who did you blow?” to get the assignment.

            Truth of the matter was that I didn’t ask anybody for it. SSG Stoneroad had told me long ago that anyone who was not an NCO shouldn’t waste PERSCOM’s (Personnel Command (now HRC Human Resources Command… Sweet Hopping Christ the Army has gone pink!!!)) time with assignment requests since they wouldn’t be listened to in any case. I had actually been trying to stay in Korea and get a Command Sponsored position so that I could have my family there with me. Trouble was that at that time in the Army Command Sponsorships required a 2 year stay in Korea from the day they were approved so the command section would get a request for Command Sponsorship and drag it’s feet until the soldier who wanted it was almost ready to leave country and then they would approve it to try and get him to do a nearly 3 year tour.

            Sure enough, after 10 months of non-stop bitching about getting an answer on my Sponsorship they finally came back and said it was approved if I would stay another years. Thankfully I was able to give them a hearty “Fuck you!” since PERSCOM had told me via PERSGRAM the day before about my Meade assignment. The look on our LT’s face was priceless when I turned it down. That bitch thought she had me cold (I don’t like Officers BTW). 60 days later I followed Evil Pidge to Ft. Meade.

Meat of the storyline (Lazy readers should start here):

            It took a few weeks to get into the NSA itself since you have to pass a polygraph test besides all of the normal Army shit but once that was over I was allowed into the SIGINT Holy of Holies…

            I can’t tell you how surprised I was at the incredibly lax security in Agency itself. The very first day they have you watch a very cool film about all of the spies that have been caught while they were working at the Agency and it is shocking. Most of these traitorous fucks weren’t caught until their greed had simply gone beyond all reason and their successes had led them to believe that no breach of security would ever be detected by the morons who run the place. They didn’t catch one guy’s classified thefts until he started using a fucking heavy lift cart to steal documents wholesale (yes, he got away with several loads first)!

            The front door was guarded by one civilian chumpstain who “watched” a row of subway turnstiles with a badge slot in them. The badge itself was a joke since it had a tiny picture on it of the badge holder which no one could see unless you walked up to someone and grabbed the badge, no PIN number, and no requirement to be checked by a human! We were even supposed to take this to our home with us! Any jackass could have stolen a badge and gotten into the building without raising an eyebrow.

            Once inside the Agency made espionage even simpler by simply leaving 90% of the section doors unlocked. Hell I took to going on “office safari” through the vast cubicle farms when I got bored… I would just go to a random floor (or even better a random basement) and walk into offices asking what it was that they did there. Most folks were so pleased that anyone took an interest that they would give me a briefing on the spot without ever questioning my need to know or compartment access (need to know is one of the Big 3 for Security along with Clearance level and access… you are supposed to have all 3 before information is released to you) (I learned a LOT this way)). Frankly I was and am surprised that more info wasn’t stolen. Of course the most sensitive areas were restricted by more layers of security but they constitute a very tiny part of the NSA machine.

      The sad thing was that worse was yet to come!

(Continued in Part 3)